Journal of Family Business Strategy最新文献

This paper addresses a question that is fundamental to the domain of family business research yet still inadequately addressed by the field’s predominant theories: Why are some family business systems able to create and sustain the simultaneous health of both the business and the family over generations, whereas many others experience an erosion in the well-being of one sphere relative to the other? Invoking analogical theorizing, we demonstrate the fruitfulness of applying key concepts from biological research on symbiotic relationships between organisms of different species. More specifically, we suggest that the area’s distinction between mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism provides a useful vocabulary for conceptualizing the heterogeneity evident amongst family business systems. By delineating factors that are likely to influence the nature and strength of a family business system’s symbiotic relationship, we hope that our conceptual framework helps guide future research on why, when, and how the interdependence between family and business can range—and sometimes shift—along a continuum from strong mutualism to strong parasitism.

To further our understanding of family influence in family businesses, this study introduces the Perceived Family Influence Scale (PFIS). Departing from existing owner-centric methodologies, the PFIS uses social constructivism theory to capture family influence from the perspective of non-family employees, a frequently neglected but integral stakeholder group within the family firm ecosystem. Following a rigorous multistep development process involving 600 non-family employees, we validate the PFIS and identify three core sub-dimensions of perceived family influence: culture, organizational decision-making, and image. We also demonstrate the practical applicability of the PFIS by examining the link between perceived family influence and non-family employee job satisfaction. Grounded in social constructivism, the PFIS is a reliable instrument that allows for the collection of more unbiased and holistic data on family influence, thereby refining our understanding of family firms and advancing the family business research field.

The concept of legacy exists at the core of family business research, yet as a construct, the nature of what legacy is and why and how legacy matters across generations has been poorly understood (Hammond, Pearson, & Holt, 2016). This lack of conceptual clarity has limited legacy research in the domain of family business. In this article, we provide a comprehensive definition of legacy that can be used to draw connections across existing legacy research and open new avenues of inquiry critical to understanding both family firms and legacy itself.

Family firms are claimed to be long-term oriented and aim at preserving their non-financial business family objectives, which is also reflected in their employment behavior. While family firms’ behavioral and strategic responses to declining performance have received some academic attention, studies acknowledging family firm generational stage are rarer. In this article, we assess the “employment smoothing” hypothesis, according to which both first- and later-generation family firms restrain from laying off their employees despite financial pressure. We use statistical data from over 4000 Finnish companies to examine the differences in employment behavior between family and non-family SMEs and address the family firm’s generational stage. By differentiating between various phases of the financial crisis that peaked during 2008–2009, we explore several dimensions of employment variability, such as changes in the number of employees, within-firm time variation, and standard deviation in employment to test our hypothesis. We find that first-generation family firms are agile—they introduce changes swiftly by cutting their personnel at the start of financial pressure and restrain from doing so during later years. On the other hand, later-generation family businesses are more stable in their employment behavior than first-generation family businesses and non-family businesses—they introduce employment changes only after their profitability has remained at a lower level for a prolonged period following the start of the crisis.

Challenging the established notion that women at the top are consistently risk averse, this study combines insights from social identity and socioemotional wealth (SEW) perspectives to propose a novel view of risk preferences by women and men CEOs in family businesses. It reframes risk preferences as behavioral responses by gender and family (managerial) role expectations relative to social aspirations. An empirical test of Italian firms provides support for the hypothesized effects. For firms above social aspirations, women family CEOs take more risk as performance declines than their men family counterparts; this gap in risk preferences attenuates for men/women nonfamily CEOs. For firms below social aspirations, these effects are reversed. This study contributes to research on gender identity and risk-taking in family firms by showing that women and men do not always behave according to gender stereotypes. Rather, due to malleability of gender identity, they enact differing risk behaviors across contexts. In addition, it advances SEW theory by unpacking the effects of distinct SEW dimensions on firm risk by gender identity.

The purpose of this special issue is to advance the ongoing dialogue on gender diversity in family businesses and, more generally, encourage further research on individual distinctions to foster an inclusive milieu leading to greater equity, innovation, and organizational resilience. The studies in this special issue exemplify various aspects of gender diversity in family business, offering innovative perspectives to examine gender roles and representation within family businesses. Building on these articles, we offer a perspective that combines feminist theories with a social identity theory approach, going beyond the Business Case for gender equality and incorporating an emphasis on gender and power dynamics and identities. We conclude by proposing several future research directions to advance gender diversity studies in family business context.

This study investigates how daughter successors perceive that their entrepreneurial identities have been influenced by their fathers. Drawing on narrative identity and identity work theories and adopting an inductive and interpretive approach, we analysed interviews with 21 daughters. The findings reveal that their perceptions of their fathers can influence their entrepreneurial identities in multiple ways, concerning both why daughters become family business successors and how their entrepreneurial identities are shaped. To examine this variety of experiences, this study proposes a typology of four processes through which daughters’ entrepreneurial identities were formed (submission, self-empowerment, enhancement, and idealisation) and how they perceive their fathers’ role (commander, patriarch, mentor, and myth) in influencing these processes. This study contributes to the family business and entrepreneurial identity fields of research by showing that daughters’ perceptions of the role they ascribe to their fathers can be powerful mental representations that exert a great influence on their entrepreneurial identity.

In family businesses, women who belong to the owning family are increasingly appointed to leadership positions. Nevertheless, their managerial roles do not overlap well with their multiple family roles and family expectations, and they are often trapped in a “golden cage.” Drawing on a multilevel view of legitimacy, we analyze twenty-one in-depth interviews with CEOs, managing directors, and cofounders of family firms to untap the legitimation of women’s leadership. We propose a framework that explores the types of judgments (instrumental, relational, and moral) underpinning such a process. Our findings suggest that multiple role empowerment of women and exposure of daughters to family businesses increase legitimacy, whereas hiding family identities and role conflicts hinder it. The role carry-over that mothers have as chief emotional officers and an organizational context promoting gender equality indirectly contribute to the legitimation of women as leaders.